


One Of Those Days

by astadelic



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alcoholic Mothers, Dave Strider's Unfamiliarity with Manners, Did I Mention Alcohol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-26
Updated: 2011-12-26
Packaged: 2017-10-28 04:23:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/303693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astadelic/pseuds/astadelic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>So basically I took my prompt, threw ectobiology out the window, and focused on what a terrible terrible mother R. Lalonde is. Also that end conversation between Rose and Dave is meant to take place while they are on Derse and pretty much don't have anything to do except sit around and talk.</p>
    </blockquote>





	One Of Those Days

**Author's Note:**

  * For [themodelhome](https://archiveofourown.org/users/themodelhome/gifts).



> So basically I took my prompt, threw ectobiology out the window, and focused on what a terrible terrible mother R. Lalonde is. Also that end conversation between Rose and Dave is meant to take place while they are on Derse and pretty much don't have anything to do except sit around and talk.

It’s one of those days.

One of those days when you obviously didn’t make your martinis dry enough last night and you obviously didn’t knock them back with enough straight gin afterwards, because if you had you’d still be asleep right now. Your head is pounding and your mouth feels like sandpaper, but you’re awake. This is not something that would normally be happening. Normally—on a normal day—you would wake up slowly over the course of another five hours. You would maybe eat something, spend some time making useless plans for events you don’t care about, look through your telescope and take just enough notes to make it seem like you’re actually working, then get out your vermouth or vodka or, if you’re feeling especially classy, bourbon and start trying to beat the clock all over again.

(Oh yes, and speak to Rose. She’s in your schedule as well.)

But here you are, awake, your eyes stubbornly plastered open and your mind painfully clear. It’s one of those days, and you know exactly what you must do.

To start, you turn your head—sending little echoes of ache throbbing through your temples—and glance at the luminous numbers projected on the ceiling.

5:17. _Jesus Christ. Way too early._ As usual.

You push back your covers and swing your legs out of bed, arching your back and feeling the stiff vertebrae crackle up to your neck. Suddenly the room spins and your head lurches sickeningly towards the ceiling. You lean forward and clutch your knees, shutting your eyes tightly until the feeling passes and you can finally stand up.

The floor is cold, and your toes curl when they touch the smooth icy wood. Stumblingly, you make your way over to the bar, where your loving daughter has so thoughtfully remembered to leave a bottle of Advil and a tall glass of water. You skip the water and gulp down two pills dry. Then you think better of it and drain the glass, too. It’s one of those days, and today your body is a temple. At least until you get home.

Next stop is the bathroom. You’re in the shower when another wave of nausea rolls over you, and you have to lean against the wet tile wall for a minute or so. Small dynamite charges are being set off just behind your temples.

 _The human body will have reached its true evolutionary peak when it is resistant to hangovers, you muse._

You get out of the shower, wrap yourself in your imported Turkish cotton bathrobe, give your teeth a haphazard scrubbing, and proceed to blow-dry your hair. The blow-drying is part of your daily ritual. It is one of the few times during the day when you are not at least somewhat inebriated, and it is perhaps the only time when you are willing to actively contemplate your life and your choices without the help of alcohol. But today is one of those days, and you must admit that you are dreading the blow-drying.

You can feel the regret creeping in, just as it always does when you are left alone with your thoughts and without a drink for more than five minutes. There’s regret, always, and a deep sense of forgetfulness, but never any guilt. That is one emotion you have never allowed yourself to feel. Sure, you have regrets, but they are not the kind of regrets that leave a peculiar stain on the conscience. They will never be those kinds of regrets. You won’t allow it.

There must be blame somewhere, though. There has to be blame. And as with any blame, someone’s got to take it. _Someone,_ not necessarily _you_ —even though you see the blame everywhere. You see it in her eyes when she has to eat cereal for dinner again because you forgot to order groceries and also how to cook, and you’re too drunk to care. You see it in his smile whenever you give him yet another meaningless gift, further reinforcing your role as just a vaguely friendly lady who gives lots of presents but _didn’t_ give birth to him.

You always see the blame reflected back at you in those shades, those shades that hide any and all traces of emotion, and they say _take it, take the blame, just fucking take it—_

You switch off the blow-dryer and direct your focus towards selecting an outfit.

Your day bag is perched on a bar stool, right where you left it when you packed five days ago. You rifle through it quickly, tallying up a quick inventory: Toiletries? Check. Paperback for the plane ride? Check. A pirated copy of Grand Theft Auto? Check like a chess grandmaster. You are completely and utterly ready for this trip, and you will tell yourself that until you believe it.

Five minutes later, you are standing in the kitchen, tapping a pen against your lips and fingering a sheet of handmade Japanese rice-based paper. Ever since you first began having these days you’ve wanted to leave a note for your daughter, but it’s just too hard to figure out the words. Rose may be a precocious little minx of a child, but even so you doubt her ability to fully comprehend this situation. Hell, you can’t even fully comprehend this situation. What exactly does one write in a situation like this?

 _gone to go check up on the brother you never knew you had  
remember to feed the cat  
love mom_  
or  
 _gone to further alienate myself from the father you never knew you had  
practice your violin  
love mom_  
or  
 _gone  
love mom_  
Eventually you settle on:  
 _we have milk today  
also do your chores  
-mom_

You leave it on the countertop of the kitchen island without any further explanation. You double-check to make sure the liquor cabinet is locked and drop the key in your purse, right next to your lipstick and your plane ticket. Carefully, you wind your favorite pink scarf around your neck, arranging it a few different ways in front of the entryway mirror before deciding on the style you like best. After all, it is one of those days, and you have to look your sharpest.

The ache slams back into your head like a cannon blast just as you’re about to walk out the door, and you grip the handle so tightly your fingernail splits and you start bleeding.

 _Dear God, but I need a drink._

 

The first thought that came to your mind when you found out you were having twins was: _How the hell am I going to work off this baby weight now?_

Of course, you did eventually, with the help of a strict exercise regimen and a temporarily lowered intake of gin. In those early days, you were positively radiant—you and Rose both. Everywhere you went, people gasped and cooed and showered praise upon the two of you. Look at the perfect mother, they would say, with her perfect baby. That child will grow up so _well._

Nobody knew about the boy, the other baby, who’d come out entangled with his sister and nearly identical to her if not for the diminutive male genitalia. When they cried—which was rarely—they did it in sync, matching mouths emitting thinly harmonizing squalls. They looked and sounded for all the world like some pale, perfect alien being, and you wondered to yourself how the fuck something like them could ever have come out of your body. Then the doctors pulled them apart, leaving you and their father to look at each other and silently ask: _So whose is whose?_

You’re glad you ended up with Rose—you’ve always been better able to understand your own gender. And besides, there was the allure of having a clone, raising a child to become a more perfect version of yourself. Which is why you try so hard to make her perfect, but not too perfect. (If she were absolutely flawless she’d be boring.)

This should be a simple task, really: all you have to do is identify and gently smooth out the flaws Rose inherited from you, while making sure the rest of her is impeccable. And you’ve been doing a pretty good job of it so far, despite your own near-constant lack of sobriety. Now _that_ would be a success story to top them all—an alcoholic, ineffective charity case of a mother raises a near-perfect daughter. The ultimate declaration of _look, I don’t always screw things up._ Triumphant proof of your dedication, and by further logic, your love. The greatest gift a mother could give.

Of course there had to be some goddamned external factor fucking with your master plan.

 

“How good to see you again, Ms. Lalonde.”

You roll your eyes. “For Christ’s sake, D, you’re the father of my daughter. You can stop it with the formality bullshit already.”

His expression remains impassive, save for an expertly flickered eyebrow. “I thought you didn’t mind the formality bullshit. Or would you rather I just greet you with some good old-fashioned tonsil hockey and a six-pack of Bud Lite? For old times’ sake?”

“As fabulous as that sounds, I’d really just like to come inside. I’m freezing.”

D opens the door a bit wider and bows with a deep flourish. “Get yer ass in here then, woman,” he drawls mockingly, slathering on the Texas twang for your benefit.

“Watch it, redneck,” you snap, stepping inside the modest apartment and shivering. “I honestly had no idea it could get this cold in Texas. It can’t be much warmer than forty degrees, can it?”

D surreptitiously clears away a stack of envelopes from the table by the door. “You’d be surprised how treacherous the temperatures can be around here.”

“Have you got a heater on or something?”

“They shut off our heat,” he says matter-of-factly.

You turn to look at him. Behind his shades, he is no doubt struggling to meet your gaze. (Or maybe he isn’t—you really can’t tell anymore.)

“And why, may I ask, did they do _that?_ ”

“What do you think? I couldn’t pay the bills.” D makes his way past piles of dirty clothes and knockoff Asian weaponry towards the kitchen. You scan the apartment and make a mental note: _watch for messiness_. “Something had to give, and the heat just didn’t seem like the most necessary investment at the time.”

You walk after him, almost tripping over a stack of pizza boxes. All the clutter is making your head hurt even more. You wish D would learn how to cook or clean or pay bills or do the fucking laundry already—you can’t stand to see them living like this. And yet you know that the two of them are probably happier than you and Rose in your meticulously clean architectural marvel, and you hate him just a little for that.

“So you’re telling me that of all the pointless luxuries in your life you could give up—and I can list quite a few—you chose instead to just skip out on your heat?” _Also watch for poor decision-making or prioritizing._

You find him rummaging through the drawers, shoving aside frying pans and desiccated oven mitts. You remember when he went on that whole oven mitt kick, and for a while they were all he would buy. He would browse through endless pages of designer mitts online and in cooking catalogs, blowing his entire paycheck on a pair from France with lavender stitched in the seams or some crap. Of course, it was all ironic, just like every other esoteric obsession he’d ever had. _Obsessions—those are another thing to look out for._

The only benefit of the oven mitt thing was that he was baking all the time. That was great.

“Hey, I figured that if the bitter, chilling winds were good enough to make a man out of Attila the Hun, then they should be good enough for me and the little bro.”

“I wish you wouldn’t call him that.”

“Why not? It’s a fine nickname, and I’m using it in a purely affectionate manner.”

“He’s your son, not your brother.” You clear a stack of used paper plates away from a chair and sit down heavily.

“He doesn’t know that. And ma’am, may I remind you that he’s your son too?”

D leans against the refrigerator and lowers his glasses slightly with one hand, throwing you a meaningful look. You shake your head, avoiding his pale gaze and feeling another bomb explode inside your skull.

“Lalonde, you need a drink,” he finally says, bless him.

“That would literally be the best thing in the world right now. What have you got?”

He spins around and flings wide the refrigerator doors. “I wasn’t kidding about the six-pack of Bud Lite, you know.”

“ _Excusez-moi._ I am a lady of class and distinction, and I would never be caught dead swilling that glorified horse piss. Especially not with the likes of you.”

“You wound me, my lady. Something more eccentric, perhaps? Session Lager? Fat Tire? That one with the wicked Japanese dragon on the label?”

“How about we move away from the realm of fermented yeast beverages altogether.”

He turns to look at you and smiles, thin lips curving up in the slight lopsided way that made your heart judder a long time ago. “You haven’t changed at all, Lalonde.”

“Neither have you, Strider.”

Your eyes meet. For a moment you are reminded of how _good_ it all was, just for that brief unbelievable period of time when your life was finally headed not only up, but in the right direction as well. Back then drinking felt more like a celebration than an obligation. Back then you could tell the difference between falling in love and being hungover.

It is in that moment that you hear a child shriek from somewhere in the apartment.

 _“Bro! I need the cheat code again!”_

D sighs and massages his temples. “Hold on a second, bro junior,” he yells back.

 _“I’ve only got one more life left! I need the code right now!”_

“What’s the magic word?” D mutters “little fucker” under his breath, and you have to stifle a laugh.

There is a momentary silence. Then: _“What?”_

“I said, what’s the magic word?”

 _“Now!”_

“Atta boy!” D shouts, shaking his head incredulously. “You ever get this from Rose?” he asks you.

“Never,” you say truthfully.

 

You don’t remember everything from your failed days as a biology major, but the basic truths of genetics and heredity have stayed with you. It is just a fact that half of Rose’s genetic blueprint comes from her father, and while you would love to be able to recognize and quell every one of her negative traits, you can’t account for D’s side of her identity. There have to be at least a few flaws that can be blamed on him. And therein is where the problem with your plan lies—you can fix the flaws you gave Rose, because you know them, but you can’t fix the flaws D gave her, because you can’t even see them. Truth be told, you never really knew him well enough to factor him in anyway.

That’s part of the reason why you began having these days: to see what D’s half of the deal turned out like, to observe what he’s doing right and—more importantly—what he’s doing wrong. Then, hopefully, you can use some deductive logic to figure out how to fix Rose even more. You see your distant son as a mirror of sorts, one who will only reflect those flaws you have yet to catch. Right now he is your most valuable asset. He is the best weapon in your arsenal against the easy trap of daughterly imperfection. He is the test group with replicated variables, but different trials.

And D?

Well, you see him as something more like a failed experiment.

You don’t trust him to raise this child all by himself. When you got pregnant, he was not yet in college. You didn’t think he could handle it then, and you don’t think he can handle it now. And in a way, you’re right. D’s home is a wreck, he can’t hold down a real job, he never got his diploma, and his son is a sarcastic video game maniac with the emotional expression of a rock. (Just like his father.)

All of D’s failings as a parent should only serve to make you feel better about how you are raising your share of the offspring, and yet they don’t, because you can’t help but notice how much easier it is for them. They are living free from pressure—both of them—which is something you can’t seem to figure out how to do. The drinking is an escape from that pressure, the constant need to check your behavior, to conform to an unspoken ideal of perfection and if that’s impossible, then make your child do it for you. It is a hard, hard way to live. It is not a way of life you would wish on anyone, least of all the father of your children, least of all your son.

Least of all your daughter.

Maybe that’s why you dread these days so much: because it is only on these days that you realize how much blame you should be carrying, and also that no matter how badly D will fuck his kid up, you will inevitably fuck your kid up even more.

 

Tell me about your mother.

not much to say  
she wasnt really there

Was she there at all?

shed drop in every now and then  
she lived somewhere else  
always brought me presents

What kind of presents?

light up puppet dildos

A pity she was unaware you were already practically swimming in the aforementioned plush commodity.

not the lightup kind though  
bro was all kinds of way too broke to manufacture that shit  
you know how much it costs for those little led lights to be shipped over

I’m guessing a ludicrously large sum.

and thats in yen

In all seriousness, though, Dave—how well did you know your mother?

not well enough to wanna get with her if thats what youre asking

As much as I enjoy the fine art of Freudian psychoanalysis, that is not what I had in mind when I inquired about your relationship with your mother.

why were you asking then

Is a close companion and trusted friend forbidden from being curious?

i dont know  
she was pretty distant  
stopped visiting when i was eleven or twelve  
i dont remember all that much about her

Shame.

but from what i do remember she was alright

Oh?

well the presents were cool  
she usually brought me like a bootleg of last years hottest game  
or movies

Both of which are absolute necessities for a growing child.

shut the fuck up rose they were total necessities for me  
and she got me an alphabet book or something when i was really little  
read that shit like it was the fucking holy bible  
i think the cover fell off

Please tell me that wasn’t the only alphabet book you owned.

actually i think it was

How did she get along with your brother?

well enough  
i mean they obviously couldnt have been all peaches n gravy but they didnt argue or anything  
they spent a lot of time talking in the kitchen  
laughing

Your mother sounds quite decent, actually.

as opposed to your mom

Dave, you have heard me speak on many occasions of my mother and her numerous shortcomings as both a parent and a person.  
When the time came for me to learn my fateful ABCs, my mother bought me a brand-new laptop on which the only installed program was a comprehensive alphabet tutorial.  
As a small child, I spent many an hour clicking onscreen aardvarks and bears and cats, with the help of an ergonomic child-proofed mouse.

i still dont see how thats a bad thing

She tried very hard to make me something that I will most certainly never be.

and that is

Perfect.

hate to break it to you rose but all parents want their kids to be perfect

My mother was quite possibly the most flawed person I have ever known.  
Surely you must appreciate the hypocrisy of her attempts to make me flawless.

id even go so far as to call that downright ironic

Damned straight.

hell who are we kidding  
all parents screw up all kids  
thats basically newtons unpublished law  
youre fucked no matter who you end up with

While I acknowledge the complete truth of that statement, I still stand that I would much rather have had your mother than my own.

dude ill trade you a chewed up alphabet book for a laptop any day


End file.
